The rational for the ever increasing need for autonomous capability of UVs, stems from the need to provide efficient means to operate vehicles and to accomplish missions in remote locations, for long, or even very long duration, and very often, in areas without safe accessibility to a human operator. A human operator was found to be ineffective, and even unreliable or unresponsive in such missions. Furthermore, to operate a vehicle from a remote location, in a semi-autonomous man-in-the-loop mode, i.e. a mode of operation involving man intervention, a bi-directional data link between the remote, man controlled command and control center, and the on-site unmanned vehicle, must be established. Moreover, achieving high fidelity video transmission over the data link for long distance, where sometimes, the data link has to be a secure link, involves high cost and cumbersome logistic effort, which, in some cases, may render the use of such system commercially and/or operationally prohibitive.
High autonomy operation is also a key rational, when the mission has to be executed by a fleet of UVs, which are operating in coordination and cooperation. Manual command and control of a fleet of UVs by a human operator is extremely complex, if not impossible.
It is accordingly the object of the present invention to substantially reduce or overcome the drawbacks associated with hitherto known semi-autonomous systems.
More specifically the present invention seeks to enhance the autonomous capability of UV, by incorporating thereto an onboard programmable decision unit, operating in an essential autonomous fashion, thereby enabling the UV to achieve better performance in accomplishing its mission under dynamic, changing and unknown environment and at the same time increasing the likelihood of mission success, while simplifying the pertinent operational procedures. "Autonomous" in the context of the invention means execution of a mission under self control without any intervention of an external supervisor, operator or incooperative agent, while operating in a dynamic, unpredictable friendly, neutral or hostile environment. For further details refer to reference 12 below.
Insofar as military applications are concerned, it is another object of the invention to incorporate a decision unit, in the manner specified, thereby not only increasing the likelihood of mission success along with simplifying the pertinent operational procedures, but also reducing the required supporting logistic, whilst, at the same time, extending the range of operation parameters and operational envelope over enemy territory.